


Holding My Breath

by dip_the_pip



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Brain Surgery, Childhood Friends, Implied Character Death, Recreational Drug Use, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_the_pip/pseuds/dip_the_pip
Summary: Prompts: "I’m dying and confessing my love for you" & "I called you at 2am because I need you"
Comments: 12
Kudos: 17





	Holding My Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Amy for the prompts <3 I hope I did them justice! 
> 
> TW: brain tumour/brain surgery, death

They quickly became best friends at the age of 7, when the new boy from the south accidentally put on Phil’s spiderman shoes. It was okay, though, because they had matching shoes! Phil did sheepishly have to ask for his shoes back after trying on the identical pair that were just a tad too small. He had tapped the new boy, Dan, on the arm to get his attention. He had a head full of floppy blondish curls and a silly dent that happened with his cheek when he smiled.

“I’m sorry, but I think you have my shoes,” Phil had said quietly, and the new boy looked down at his feet, and then the shoes in Phil’s hands.

“Nuh-uh! These are mine!” The boy shouted, and Phil didn’t really know why he had gotten angry so fast.

“I-It’s just that, these ones are too small for me, s-so I think you’re wearing mine by accident,” Phil stammered out. Dan looked down at his toes and wiggled them in his shoes, before sighing, nearly giving up.

“No proof! I brought these from home!” He argued.

Phil’s face had lit up a bit, “Actually, my name is in the shoe,”

Dan’s angry face dropped, and then he stared down at his feet again. He huffed dramatically and kicked off one of the shoes, picking it up and handing it to Phil, who inspected it. Phil grinned, pulling back the tongue of the shoe and showing the other boy the Sharpie-d “P.L”.

“See, my shoes,”

Dan grumbled, kicking off the other shoe and grabbing the matching pair from Phil’s hands. “Fine, whatever,”

Phil smiled, pulling his shoes on and wiggling his toes now that he had enough room in his shoes.

“That was great problem solving, boys,” One of the teaching assistants said from where she was standing in the doorway, “Philip, I think you should show our new friend around,”

Phil frowns a bit, “Ms. Payton, I wanna play with my own friends,”

“Well, maybe Dan can be a new friend,”

The thought of throwing a fit crossed Phil’s mind, but he knew better. He nodded in defeat and forced a fake smile for his new ‘friend’. “Wanna play with me and my mates?”

Dan shrugged a bit, fidgeting with his fingers, “What do you play? Like…Football?” He asked, and he was suddenly a lot quieter than when he was yelling at Phil over his shoes.

Phil snorted, “No way. Usually make-belief games. We’re Wizard Dragons today,” Phil pulled on his jacket and waited for Dan, before leading him outside and through the school yard.

“What’s a Wizard Dragon?”

Phil rolled his eyes, “We’re dragons that have magical powers of wizards,”

“So, we’re basically just wizards?”

“That can breathe fire!”

Dan giggled, following Phil across the yard, making sure to follow his steps to avoid big puddles in the grass that they couldn’t easily see, “But if we are wizards, couldn’t we like, cast a spell to make ourselves breathe fire?”

“Dan!” Phil exclaimed, grabbing the shorter boy by the shoulders, “We just want to be dragons!”

Dan broke out into a fit of giggles, and Phil dropped his grasp on him.

“What’s so funny?” Phil crossed his arms over his chest with an exaggerated pout.

Dan shrugged a bit, “I don’t know, it’s just funny to get you worked up,”

Phil stared at him with confusion before rolling his eyes and continuing to walk towards his group of friends. He introduced them all to Dan before trying to figure out how Dan was going to fit into their game.

“We could make him a shopkeeper,” One friend suggested, and Dan frowned.

“I don’t want to be a shopkeeper. I want to be a Dragon Wizard,”

“Wizard Dragon,” Phil corrected quickly, and he saw Dan roll his eyes.

A few others groaned, “Why does he have to play with us?” One asked.

Phil wanted to tell them that one of their teachers told him that he had to play with Dan, but instead, he shrugged, “He seemed cool, and he doesn’t have any friends,”

“Hey!” Dan protested, “I have friends,”

One boy who was a few years above them stepped forward, “I bet you don’t, pussy,” He said confidently, and a few kids gasped as the use of such a bad word, “I bet that’s why you had to leave your last school. You were such a loser that they kicked you out!” He grinned evilly, before beginning to laugh, most of the other kids laughing along with him.

Out the corner of his eye, Phil could see Dan tearing up. He felt like he should be laughing along with his friends…but he gave him back his shoes! He couldn’t just let everyone be mean to him!

“I’m his friend,” Phil said, his voice shaky.

A few kids snickered, “You don’t count,” The older boy said.

“What?” Phil asked, confused, “Why?”

“Because you’re just as much of a loser as he is,” More laughter, “No one actually gives a crap about you, you just have a cool older brother,”

Phil shook his head, “He isn’t cool,”

“He’s a whole lot cooler than you two are,”

Phil was about to argue back, before he noticed Dan running away. In a split decision, he decided to chase after Dan, who ducked behind a brick wall.

Phil slowed down his running until he was walking up to the edge of the wall. He silently peeked around the corner, and saw Dan crying into his knees. He stepped around the corner and moved to sit on the pavement next to Dan.

“I’m sorry they’re so awful,” Phil apologized softly, and Dan shrugged, sniffling quietly.

“It’s not your fault, and he was right,” He sniffled again, and Phil wanted to hug his new friend, “I-I am a loser…”

“You can’t be a loser,” Phil said, reaching over to pat Dan’s shoulder timidly.

Dan snorted, “And why’s that?”

“Because you’re my friend,” Phil said with complete sincerity, “And my friends can’t be losers,” He said with a shake of his head.

Dan smiled ever so slightly, and Phil knew right then that this was going to be his new best friend, and he wasn’t going to let his friends and classmates pick on him.

-

Dan coughs harshly, pounding at his chest as Phil takes the joint from his fingers and pats his back. It’s late in the summer, and Phil’s parents are gone on vacation to get a break from their boys. Them being gone meant that Martyn was allowed to go stay at his girlfriends, and Dan was allowed to sleep over nearly every night. They spent a lot of their time climbing out of Phil’s window and sitting on the roof while sharing shitty joints that Martyn rolled for them, and then ordering disgusting amounts of pizza.

They were coming up to their final year of school, before they, and all their friends, were going to move across the country for Uni, probably. Phil wants to savour all the time he has with his best friend in their last year, which is already hard enough when Dan’s new girlfriend takes up a lot of the time that isn’t spent getting high on Phil’s roof.

It’s not that Phil doesn’t like Dan’s girlfriend, it’s that…he doesn’t think they’re compatible. And he doesn’t think that in a selfish way. Dan never has anything good to say about her, and when they’re together, Phil can see through Dan’s phony smile. It’s nothing compared to the smile that Phil can plaster on his face with a few dumb jokes and stories.

He says he loves her, though, he he’ll respect that. Phil chooses to not bring up the fact that he wakes up with Dan wrapped around him majority of the mornings he spends with Phil. Phil always manages to sneak out of bed, so Dan doesn’t get embarrassed that he’s cuddling his best friend like he should be cuddling his girlfriend.

Phil glances across the roof at Dan, who is still coughing up a lung while Phil takes a drag from the joint, before trying to hold back his own coughs. “It’s not that bad,” He says, as he grabs a large Coke bottle that Dan had poured of bunch of Jack Daniels into. He exhales the smoke before taking a few breaths and then taking a swig from the bottle, trying not to make a face.

“I wanna know where Martyn gets his shitty weed from,”

Phil rolls his eyes, “Just be glad he doesn’t make us give him any money,”

Dan grins, and nods a bit, “I’m sure he’ll make us pay him back someday, like forcing us to help him move into his first apartment for free or something,”

Phil pouts, “Crap, you’re probably right,”

Dan leans over and elbows Phil in the ribs, “At least we get free weed for now, even if it goes down like shit,”

“How would you know how shit goes down?”

Dan rolls his eyes, “I don’t, asshole, I’m assuming.”

Phil giggles, and stares across at Dan, who has taken the joint again. His hair darkened to brown over the years, but his shaggy curls still remind him of his best friend when they first met. These days, Dan’s warm brown eyes are always surrounded in a halo of red. Still, it’s his best friend.

“Should I place the pizza order now?” Dan asks, fumbling with his iPhone to pull up the local pizza place number.

Phil can’t seem to tear his eyes off of Dan, admiring the way the streetlights made Dan’s features a little sharper, a little older. It didn’t take a genius to notice that Dan was fit, he was an attractive guy. Phil knows it weird for mates to point out shit like that, though, so he keeps to himself, locked away in a secret little box in his heart.

Sure, they were best friends, but friends don’t usually say they love each other. Well, some of Phil’s friends will say they love each other as brothers, but that was never the case with Dan. Phil thinks he knows that Dan cares about him too, that they show each other unspoken love on a daily basis, from Dan offering to place the pizza order due to Phil’s phone anxiety, to Phil filling out Dan’s calendar and writing daily tasks for him so he can at least attempt to be organized and functioning on a day-to-day basis.

They didn’t need to say the words, because Phil knows it in his heart.

-

Guilt eats away at Dan as he stares at the voicemail in his inbox.

He knows he’s a shitty friend, he knows it’s his own fault that he feels guilty. After Dan moved to London with his girlfriend for University, Dan sort of dropped contact with everyone back home. He didn’t mean to, but Phil was moving away for school too, he was probably going to be just as busy as Dan was.

Phil was always the one to reach out when they were home for the holidays, but Dan always had some reason or excuse to blow him off with the promise of _next time_. And as months, and then years passed, ‘next time’ never seemed to come.

In his third year of Uni, he proposed to his girlfriend, and less than a year later, they sent out the wedding invites. Dan had brought up the idea of inviting Phil, and his girlfriend quickly turned it down, claiming that he gave her ‘weird vibes’. It hurt, but Dan wasn’t going to upset his bride.

When Phil’s call came in, a week after invites were sent out, Dan felt a pit in his stomach. He let the call go to voicemail, put his phone on Do Not Disturb, and walked away. He wants to listen to it, he really does, but he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to face his best friend and tell him that he can’t come to his wedding.

Just the thought alone made Dan want to be sick, but the wedding wasn’t about him. It was about his wife. The woman he would spend the rest of his future with.

The voicemail sat in his inbox for nearly a month and a half, before Martyn requested to follow Dan’s private Instagram. His thumb hovers over the accept button, before he closes the app. He sits quietly in his flat, listening to the music coming from the bathroom while his fiancée showered. He takes a deep breath, before opening his voicemail and putting his phone to his ear.

_Static_

_“Hey Dan, hopefully this, uh, is still your number. If it’s not, sorry person who isn’t Dan,”_

Dan leans back into the couch, unable to fight off the grin.

_“When you said you wanted to drop off the face of the earth, I didn’t think you really meant it when we went off to Uni,” Phil chuckles sadly, “I’m guessing you deleted Facebook since I couldn’t reach you there, and I don’t understand Instagram so I couldn’t find you there, He sighs, “I know how much you hate answering your phone, I’m not even surprised you let me go to voicemail, honestly. I needed to try, though.”_

_Phil takes a shaky breath, “Congrats on getting engaged. Heard invites were sent out and that’s, uh,” He clears his throat, “That’s really great Dan. I’m sure you have your reasons for…not inviting me, and it’s fine. I get it, it guess,” He says softly. “If you get the chance, call me please.”_

The call ends, and Dan feels like he could cry. He was such a shitty human, and he knew it. He was about to put his phone into sleep mode when another voicemail began playing.

_Static_

_Sniffles_

_“Shit, Dan,” Phil says, and his voice cracks, “I sh-shouldn’t be calling you,” He mumbles._

Dan thinks he’s probably talking to himself more than Dan.

_“It’s fucking 1, no, nearly 2am,” He hisses, “I shouldn’t be calling you,” He sniffles._

_“Fuck, Dan, I-I need my best friend,”_

Dan thinks he sounds drunk,

_“I-I’m-” He breaks off with a sob, before shakily taking a breath, “I don’t know how long I have, Dan,” He whispers._

The entire world freezes around Dan. The pit in his stomach his gone, just filled with emptiness now.

_Phil sniffles harshly, “Months, maybe, if I’m lucky,”_

Dan can faintly hear him trying desperately hold back a sob, and he feels his own bubbling up in his chest.

_“T-They found a tumour,” He tries to keep his voice even, “Had a bunch o-of surgeons look at the scans. They d-don’t think they can safely operate,”_

Dan listens as Phil blows his nose harshly, and he barely notices the tears streaming down his own cheeks.

_“They’re uh, gonna go in and look at my brain, that’s where the tumour is, and try and remove as much as they can s-safely,”_

_“I want you there,” Phil says quickly, “B-Before I go into surgery. If they mess up my brain…maybe it’ll help h-having a familiar face,” Phil chuckles sadly._

Dan thinks he could be sick, but he also doesn’t feel anything at all. The bright colours his fiancée decorated their apartment with fade to a dim nothingness.

_“It’s all so scary, Dan,” Phil’s voice sounds small, like when they were kids, “They throw around these big medical terms and a-all I can do during my appointments is sit there while trying not to have a meltdown,” He sniffs, “I’m sorry i-if I’m interrupting your perfect life with your perfect fiancée,” Phil mutters bitterly, “B-But…” He takes a deep, but still shaky breath, “But I l-loved you first. I loved you long before she even knew of your existence, a-and for some reason, I’m the one who gets cut out of your life,” Phil ends in a whisper, his voice cracking, “I know she doesn’t like me…But not even an invite to your wedding, Dan? What the hell is that about?”_

Dan’s got his knees drawn to his chest now, tears dripping off his chin and dampening his shirt.

_“I swore I’d go to my grave about how I felt about you,” Phil chuckles bitterly, “But I guess facing an early grave is making me have to deal with this now,”_

_Phil sniffles, “Congrats on the engagement. Congrats on the wedding. If you give me an address, I’ll send a wedding gift,” He mutters before the voicemail ends quickly._

Dan opens his recent calls and sees the one from Phil at 4pm one day, and another he seemed to miss a few days later at 1:50am.

He clicks Phil’s contact and calls him back, listening to the phone ring and ring. When it went to voicemail, Dan didn’t bother, instead just choosing to hang up. He opens Instagram, and goes to his follower requests, scrolling until he finds Martyn.

He accepts the request, and within seconds of him opening the chat to message him, a little bubble popped up to indicate that Martyn was typing too. Dan deleted his messages, waiting with shaky fingers.

_hey man, I’m guessing you heard? -M_

_sorta I guess I just heard abt it -D_

_how long does he have? -D_

_I tried calling and didn’t get an answer -D_

_Dan, he went in for surgery earlier this week -M_

_Shit went south really fast -M_

Everything was happening so fast just around Dan. He had just heard that not only did his best friend have a brain tumour that’ll probably kill him, but also that he was in love with him. While just trying to process Phil’s tumour, flashes of an alternate life together go through Dan’s head, and he feels like garbage for not realizing sooner.

_First 6 hrs out of surgery he was pretty loopy from the drugs, but then his speech got all fucked -M_

_And then they think he might’ve had a stroke or something -M_

_And then everything started to shut down -M_

_He didn’t make it 24 hours out of surgery -M_

Dan tenses up, eyes scanning his screen. His hands freeze, and his phone slips between his fingers and falls to the floor. He reaches out for a throw pillow, and slowly brings it to his chest, hugging it tight. He feels like everything is spiralling and spinning out of control. Just a few hours ago he was tasting cakes for his wedding, now he’s finding out his childhood best friend has passed away…after he asked Dan to be there for him.

He chuck the pillow and scrambles off the couch, sprinting to the bathroom and falling to his knees as he heaves over the toilet, a chill going through his body as sobs take over.

Memories of adventures through their lives flash through his mind, spending extra moments on the times Dan had noticed Phil’s gaze, but chose to ignore it. Dan was scared of Phil’s attention, of the love he had to share. He was scared of the hurtful words that got thrown at them when they were younger and made sure to do everything he could to make sure no one could call him those words anymore, with a pretty fiancée in a big city.

That was the selfish choice, though. _He_ was selfish. He shouldn’t have dropped contact with Phil after moving away, he shouldn’t have let his girlfriend control when he’d go visit Phil, he shouldn’t have put off listening to Phil’s voicemails. He has a lifetime of memories with him, but only a voicemail as proof of how much he loved him.

Dan knows he should’ve answered Martyn, but instead he pulls himself off the floor, rinses his mouth with mouthwash, and leaves his flat for a night of heavy drinking in a shitty bar somewhere. Maybe he’ll drink enough to see his best friend once again. 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr @dip-the-pip


End file.
